Damien didn’t know if darkness could be angry, but if it could the roiling energy trying to smash its way through his barrier felt angry. A strong sense of hate permeated the miasma. Imogen held tight to him, her eyes squeezed shut. Out of the corner of his eye he caught glimpses of spectral skulls swirling through the darkness. His shield was down to half strength and the darkness showed no sign of dissipating.

He redirected all his energy to maintaining the barrier which strengthened it considerably. Imogen whimpered and Damien stroked her hair. He’d never seen the normally unshakable woman so out of sorts. It had to be an effect of the darkness trap. It made his knees weak and stomach roil, but his emotions stayed steady. Just as well; if he lost focus they were both dead.

Gradually the pressure on his barrier weakened. A minute later the melted remains of the stone shelves grew visible in the light of his shield.

Imogen looked at him. “Is it over?”

“Getting there. We’d best wait another minute before leaving the barrier. You okay?”

She looked away. “Fine. I just got a little overwhelmed for a while. You saved my life, again.”

“You’re not going to yell at me, are you?”

“No. Thanks for coming after me. It was stupid coming in here on my own. I just felt so angry and I wanted revenge so bad. Or maybe I hoped Connor would kill me and end the pain.”

“Don’t say that. Once you’re dead there’s no way things can improve. As long as you’re alive there’s always the hope that when you wake up the next day will be better. We’re teammates now. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

Imogen broke down in tears and he held her. She must not have given herself a chance to grieve after Alden’s death, running on rage and hate. It looked like she’d hit her limit. Of all the terrible times for her to have a breakdown, she couldn’t have picked a worse one than this. He almost would have preferred an angry Imogen, at least until they retuned to the castle. After that she could cry on his shoulder as long as she needed to.

When Imogen calmed down she looked back to him and their gazes locked. Before he knew it she kissed him. Not a quick thank you kiss on the cheek either. The kiss matched her personality, rough and aggressive. She ran her hands over his chest. Given their proximity he was going to have a difficult time hiding his reaction.

When she came up for breath the darkness had fully cleared. He gave a full-body shiver. Damn, that was a kiss. With Imogen smiling at him in a way that made his knees weak Damien opened a tiny hole in the barrier. He stuck his finger out, and it didn’t disintegrate or even burn.

“I think we’re good to go.” At least his voice didn’t tremble.

Imogen licked her lips. “What’s the rush?”

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Oh, boy. He didn’t want to just reject her, that might send her back into a depression. On the other hand, a corruption-infused cave in the middle of nowhere didn’t make the best trysting spot. Not to mention he was technically engaged, even if it was to someone he didn’t love. If he did anything with Imogen it would be a horrible betrayal to Karrie. They needed to escape and the sooner the better.

And how would he explain this to Karrie? It didn’t seem to argue well for their future that he didn’t feel especially guilty about kissing Imogen. He did worry about upsetting Lizzy even though she’d made it pretty clear that he was free to do whatever he wanted and she wouldn’t hold it against him.

Damien absorbed the energy remaining in the barrier—it wasn’t much—and put some distance between them. The tunnel leading out had melted closed. If they were going to escape it wouldn’t be that way.

“What’s wrong?” Imogen closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t you want to finish what we started?”

She’d completely lost her mind. Must be the stress. He looked around the ruined cave. “This isn’t exactly the place for that sort of thing. The lingering aura of demonic energy kind of kills the mood.”

She kissed the side of his neck. “I think I could revive the mood most anywhere.”

Damien didn’t doubt that for a moment. For a woman that had never given a man a second look, at least that he was aware of, she had a talent for teasing. Unfortunately that wasn’t going to get them out of here.

“What do you say we escape first and when we return home see if we still want to go down this path?”

She stuck out her bottom lip and pouted. Imogen. Pouted. If he lived a thousand years Damien wouldn’t have considered that a remote possibility. “Fine. But we will pick up where we left off. I promise.”

He swallowed. The way she said it made it sound more like a threat than a promise. Whatever, he’d deal with it later. Once they were safe and she had a chance to think it over he hoped she’d come to her senses. Well, most of him hoped she’d come to her senses.

“How do you want to get out of here?” she asked.

The pout vanished along with the sultry tone, thank heaven. “I say we just blast our way out. It can’t be more than a hundred yards out of here.”

She stared at him for a moment then shook her head. “You’re serious.”

“Sure. My soul force has mostly recovered. I’ll dig and you stabilize the tunnel.”

“Okay.”

Damien drew power and sent a twisting blast at the wall. His drill cut through the stone easily enough. When the tunnel was ten feet deep Imogen conjured a reinforcing barrier. Damien didn’t know how long it took, but it went faster than digging into the bandit castle in the badlands.

They flew out into the clear blue sky and found the rest of the search parties waiting. The archmage flew down, a fierce scowl twisting her face. “What the hell happened? I thought I said no one goes after him alone.”

Imogen flew in front of him. “It’s my fault. I lost control and went in without thinking. If Damien hadn’t followed the trap inside would have killed me.”

That brought his master up short. “Trap?”

“There was no sign of Connor,” Damien said. “But he left a black gem filled with corrupt energy. It detonated when we got close.”

“How could he have set a trap if he didn’t know we were coming?” The archmage gave voice to Damien’s thoughts.

“Someone must have warned him. Maybe I didn’t bury Mikhail deep enough.”

“It might have been Eleck,” the archmage said.

“I doubt it.” Damien shook his head. He couldn’t imagine Eleck having the nerve to contact Connor after his massive failure.

“Whatever happened we clearly missed him. Are you two okay?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Damien said. Imogen nodded once, her face a blank mask.

In a louder voice the archmage said, “The mission’s a failure. Let’s head home.”

When the archmage turned her back Imogen reached over and stroked Damien’s arm. When he looked toward her she smiled in a way that set his heart racing. It reminded him of Lizzy. Maybe he should have introduced Imogen to the demon spirit instead of the princess. That would have been a night to remember.